Glimmering, cold mornings— with everything lightly frosted— bring magic and dazzle to my morning commute. A rainbow on New Year’s day seemed to land in our yard, as I tinkered inside— creating a piece for the first quarter’s show at the Old School Gallery in El Morro. Fairy Room is an assemblage of mementos, arranged like a little bedroom with a window view. The photos show the poem painted on the glass of the ‘shadow box,’ and of the wooden door— an old box lid, found in the forest— along with a doorknob that I had been saving for many years. I also put one of my recent landscape paintings in the group show— it’s the one with the bright yellow and pink palette. This year’s Artist’s Challenge show at the ART123 Gallery in Gallup has a Four Seasons theme, with 8” circular canvases. Inspired by the redbud trees that I would visit each season while walking in Jamaica Plain, I chose to simplify the view to a snippet of a branch with spring’s blossoms, summer’s leaves and seed pods, autumn’s leaves and seed pods, and a lingering seed pod in winter. I worked on watercolor paper and used the sewing machine to stitch over my pencil line drawings. Then, I added some color and mounted the paper circles onto the canvas supports. Other photos include snowy scenes, sun and moon rises, the pups, and the not-so-feral cat!
